STOP BITCHING AND START THE REVOLUTION

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.
-Alice Walker

In his seminal work The Populist Moment, Lawrence Goodwyn outlines what it takes to build a genuine grassroots movement for democracy. The Populist movement began shortly after the Civil War, when farmers realized that they were doomed to enslavement by the corporate powers that arose in the aftermath of the war unless they united to use their collective power to defend their interests. After being rebuffed by the overlords of America and the merchants who defended the system for their own gain, they realized that the movement could only gain steam by creating a new political consciousness through educating Americans about how they had been systematically brainwashed into believing that the feudal system that had developed was democratic.

Lacking modern means of communication, Populist leaders began to organize at the local level, empowering lecturers to represent the movement at the local, state and national level. They created an alternative media of newspapers and periodicals to spread their message. Eventually they succeeded at awakening a vast swath of America to the fact that true democracy starts at the grassroots level. It cannot be entrusted to elected representatives beholden to corporate interests who choose who the People get to vote for. The vote only matters when people are willing to abandon the notion that either of the corporate parties represent them and work to elect their own champions. The system cannot be overthrown. It must be changed from within by a People who have learned to question a system that has no resemblance to what they have been taught to believe it is.

Despite stunning success in recruiting farmers tired of being abused for the benefit of the economic elite of their day, creating a cooperative economy proved a daunting task for Populists. Their first goal was to establish a cooperative to sell goods to farmers at a fair rate of interest and to help them sell their products at market rate without extortionate middle men were resisted by the moneyed class. They were stymied when those who controlled the limited money supply refused to accept their collateral for credit necessary to establish their venture. This was when the prevailing political consciousness began to awaken to the degree to which America was in the grip of the bankers and the industries they increasingly controlled. The banksters of the day wielded that power through their control of the supply of both money and credit, just as they do now. This power was more complete than today because under the gold standard, the amount of money available was limited by the amount of gold held by the economic elite.

Today, most spokesmen for change on both the left and right content themselves with complaining about the problems millions of people elsewhere around the world are fighting. There are many more effective ways they could help promote efforts to effectively organize to form a united movement for peace, environmental and economic justice. Fortunately, there are some who are putting more of their efforts into solutions than complaining.

Adam Klugman directed publicity for the Mad As Hell Doctors national tour for single payer in 2009. In 2010, he became the host of Mad as Hell in America. It was perhaps the most radical show on the now-defunct Portland radio station KPOJ, which fell victim to the conservative scheme to take control of the corporate media. The difference between Klugman’s approach and that of more well-known media figures was that when a caller complained about a problem, he demanded that they propose a solution. While most ideas this offered were unrealistic, they did help focus listeners on how to prioritize and strategize for a real democratic revolution.

Most liberal spokespersons lack the vision to offer the truly radical ideas that became part of the Populist manifesto in the late 1880s. Populists realized that they could not escape economic bondage until the government controlled both banks and railroads, the industries that at that time extorted most of what little cash was available to farmers. They proposed that the government nationalize the banks and the railroads and take back the power to create fiat money that would provide the means for a growing population to prosper as America grew.

In the modern era, one of the chief economic spokesmen for the left proposed just this in the wake of the collapse of the American and world economies by the banksters. In little-remembered articles in Rolling Stone and his New York Times column, Paul Krugman called for nationalizing banks. Of course, just as he stopped advocating for single payer when the Democrats made it clear they would not challenge the interests of the Wall Street-controlled medical insurance industry, he retreated to a position supporting Democratic half-measures. There is little doubt that he feared stepping too far from the corporate line might further marginalize his limited influence on economic policy discussions.

The root of the problems we face is corruption of the US government. The most powerful of those who control it are those who control the money supply today. Wall Street criminals have been given a pass by the Department of Justice. The Attorney General is a former partner in the infamous corporate defense firm Covington and Burling, which represented many of the Wall Street types he is in charge of holdling responsible to the law. His priority remains protecting bankster interests while making a show of enforcing the law, levying fines that are considered a cost of doing business and prosecuting corporations instead of their CEOs. Banks and other financial institutions control essentially all the only industries that generate profits and are busy trying to privatize government and the commons. To deal with the problems their depredations have caused, Americans must end the corruption. That should be the focus of the efforts of both conservatives and liberals.  For every problem they bitch about, they should point out the solution: ending the power of corporations and the wealthy to determine who Americans can choose from to represent them.

There are many ways to approach the problem of cleaning up corruption. There is a movement coalescing around these ideas. Americans need to understand that fighting corruption is not just another issue on a list of thousands. It needs to be highlighted on every talk show and “alternative” news outlet remaining. We need a constitutional amendment establishing that money spent to influence politics is not speech and that corporations do not have constitutional rights of people. Such an amendment is favored by roughly 80% of both liberals and conservatives. This is only one of two essential steps. We also need a slate of reform legislation like that proposed in the American Anti-Corruption Act. To get them, Americans must make support for fighting bankster control of government a campaign issue in 2014 and beyond until they elect a Congress that will pass both.

This is the core of the global democratic revolution that is the only hope for liberty and justice for our children and their posterity. Let’s quit bitching and start the revolution.

TOWARD A STRATEGY FOR DISMANTLING THE NEW WORLD ORDER

This is the first of a series of articles that will lay out the outline of a strategy for creating a just world economy, ending war in the process. Basically, it identifies the central problem as corruption of governments, particularly that of the US. The general strategy is to attack the problem by taking away the power of the global economic elite to dictate who we can choose among to represent those of us in “democratic” countries. This will fundamentally undermine their ability to dictate domestic and foreign policy in the nation with the most power behind both, as well as the partners and client nations of the US.

The next several essays in this series will elaborate on goal setting, specific elements of the strategy and tactics for implementing it, with emphasis on strategic messaging.


When you mention the developing “New World Order” to people who still think there is a two-party system in the United States, eyes roll.  Anything you have to say afterward is dismissed before it is out of your mouth. Many Republicans are closer to understanding what it is than are partisan Democrats. They recognize that there has been a fundamental change in the way the federal government operates, starting with the first banking bailout. They acknowledge the effects of financial manipulation of the economy, but mistake it for a socialist takeover by "liberals" rather than the fascist coup that it is. Partisan Democrats believe that the only problem is Republican politicians and the solution merely to elect more Democrats, who they equate with “champions of the People.”  Any debate framed by partisan politics is therefore a distraction from the real issues.

The obvious truth is that both parties have been systematically corrupted by powerful financial elites who put their interests over those of the rest of us. Therefore, one of the objectives of any strategy must be to find a way to get partisans to understand that neither party represents them. Liberals and conservatives are already beginning to work together on selected issues. If we can connect these issues to a larger agenda and convince partisans that the issues are more important than whether a candidate is a Republican or a Democrat, it is possible to develop a strategy to take back America for the People.  Congress already ignores the clear will of the People on many critical issues. The only way we can change that is to work together.  We must agree that our overarching goal is representative democracy.  If we can put aside ideological differences, it is possible to pressure our elected representatives to act according to the common will. Americans have proven capable of putting the candidate over the party when given a reasonable choice. They will do it again if they understand that it is the only way to make their votes count. We can worry about consensus on other issues after we get the attention of Congress by taking out a few entrenched corporate puppets.

With election campaigns having become largely a matter of who can generate the most funding and corporations and the wealthy free to spend unlimited sums to influence elections, it is delusional to think that voters can influence decisions in Washington before strong campaign finance reform is instituted. We must find a way to guarantee that members of Congress know their jobs depend on supporting a constitutional amendment to effectively ban corporate expenditures to influence elections while limiting the amount individuals can spend to buy the candidates of their choice. The only way to do this is to make support for such an amendment the litmus test in every Congressional campaign where a candidate of any party can be found who will pledge to amend the constitution.

The first goal for assuming popular control of the United States government and restoring national sovereignty to all nations is to define the fundamental problem in a way that most people agree on. We then have to educate average Americans and citizens around the world about the danger of allowing control of the US government by the economic elite. This common understanding is necessary to find a solution, since Americans must speak with one voice to merit the claim of representing the will of the People. Citizens of other nations must stand with them against the same global financiers who control their governments, directly or indirectly.  It is critical that those with the biggest audiences outside the corporate media understand and communicate the urgency of putting aside partisan, national, cultural and religious differences to save humanity from perpetual economic slavery.

Ultimately, the survival of human civilization as we know it may depend on it. Failure to check the power of corporations with trillions of dollars in assets in the fossil fuel industry will doom millions as the result of global climate instability.

For those who question the existence of a relatively small group of individuals so powerful that they can manipulate the global economy, consider this:

1) 147 of the largest international corporations hold 40% of the assets of over 43,000 transnational corporations. The great majority of these are financial institutions. The most influential individuals in each are also members of the Boards of Directors of others. They are at the top of the pyramid of the global economic elite whose power we must attack.

2) Through this system of interlocking directorships, with financial resources that dwarf those of even the United States, financial institutions have come to control key economic sectors including energy, telecommunications, insurance and corporate health care in addition to a financial industry that at the time of the 2008 crisis generated about 40% of US GDP, wealth that the common citizen never sees.

3)  Six corporations control virtually all of Americanmainstream media: Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, Newscorp, CBS and NBC. Corporate donor also heavily influence the content of "public" TV and radio in the US.

4)  It is estimated that there is far more than enough money heldoffshore by wealthy citizens to pay off the US debt.

Most Americans have almost no knowledge of how the economy really works, having been brainwashed into buying the myth of the free market. This is the essential assumption of the Washington consensus. Other demonstrably false tenets of this neoliberal model are that global free trade is inevitable, that endless growth is possible and that national economies struggle in it only if they do not adhere to financial and monetary policies that allow the rich to accumulate enough wealth that it magically trickles down to those who are willing to work hard enough.

This is an economic strategy that in the final analysis is nothing but a scheme cooked up by international financiers to consolidate their control until they essentially run everything through their proxies in governments and corporate intermediaries they own.  As taxpayers around the world accumulate massive debt to the very individuals who crashed the global economy, the global economic elite counsels austerity. This leads to slashing of government services, job loss in nations with no industrial base or excess capacity in the face of reduced demand and finally, the selloff of government assets to pay the interest on the accumulated debt.  As job losses mount and wages and salaries decline, the tax base is undermined. This is magnified by corporate and individual tax breaks for the rich in an ultimately self-defeating cycle since the worker is the only source of real wealth. Paper money is only a promise of payment by a government so deeply indebted to those who control the printing press that most politicians must serve the interests of Wall Street if they value their jobs.

Americans are starting to grasp the enormity of the fraud perpetrated on them, but are far from organizing effectively to do anything about it. It was considered a major victory that Larry Summers, one of the chief architects of the global Ponzi scheme in derivatives, was not selected as Chairman of the Fed, replacing his co-conspirator Tim Geithner as he exits through the revolving door between Wall Street and government. A real victory would be to see the two of them in prison, yet none of  the principle criminals responsible for the global economic meltdown has been prosecuted. Meanwhile, “too big to fail” banks used bailout money to buy failed financial institutions for pennies on the dollar, making them even more powerful.

Here is the difference between most "socialist" nations and those which by definition are fascist:  In a centralized socialist system, the political class generally controls the economic elite and they work in tandem to promote the interests of both.  Venezuela and some other Latin American countries are notable exceptions to this rule.  In fascist countries, it is the other way around.  In banana Republics like the US, corporations control the political elite. Note that this definition of fascism does not require a dictator, the only thing lacking in the US. There is no dictator, but a small oligarchy of powerful individuals who have no concern for the good of the nation,  its people or that of any other nation. There is no need for a dictator in a fascist nation whose people have willingly given control of their government to the economic elite in exchange for promises of endless wealth. The “shining city on the hill” promised by Reagan was built on sand. It was a mirage, becoming more distant the nearer Americans were told it was. The collapse was inevitable, as the whole system was based on credit backed only by worthless derivatives. Since the total value of the derivatives market is several times the global GDP as a result of failure to impose real reforms, the next crash will be much more catastrophic.

If fascism is defined as corporatism, then all the elements are present in the United States. A police state apparatus is in place. People have been brainwashed into accepting an extreme version of nationalism known as “American Exceptionalism.” The government has imposed the most intrusive surveillance methods ever devised.  War, always regarded by most as inevitable, has become endless. Until recently, these have been accepted as the price for a false sense of security. What most activists aware of these problems have missed is how they are related to each other. They must understand these relationships so that they can connect the dots for the population at large. That is the basis for developing a strategy for the progressive movement as a whole. Fortunately, recent events have made that much easier.

To reach our goal of establishing representative democracy, our strategy must build on the partnerships we are forming across ideological divides on critical issues such as domestic surveillance, the NDAA and the pursuit of world domination by endless war.  All of these are related to the global war of terror, which is in reality a global war on national sovereignty and democracy. Its economic counterparts are the Trans Pacific Partnership and the proposed Trans Atlantic Partnership with Europe. While general recognition of the danger of these massive free trade agreements has been slow to build, the phony outrage of European governments over US corporate spying revealed by Snowden has put the brakes on the latter. That gives us a chance to make Americans realize that the ultimate goal of these agreements is to make national governments subject to the demands of transnational corporations, regardless of the interests of the people of any of the subject nations. That should alarm both liberals and conservatives who hold national sovereignty as an unshakable principle of peaceful coexistence on the one hand and economic self-determination on the other.

Neoliberalism and neoconservatism are two sides of the same coin, best described as neofascism. The first seeks to establish global corporate dominance by economic coercion, while the other is a policy of militarily destroying any nation that stands in the way. On these issues, there is no gridlock and no partisan divide. The majority of Democratic and Republican politicians support both. While Americans continue to divide themselves into liberals and conservatives and argue nonsense with each other about who is responsible for destroying the American dream, the corporate criminals responsible remain at large, laughing all the way to their respective banks. 

If there are an “us” and “them,” they are the 99% versus the 1%. No one can claim to represent the 99% if we cannot persuade those who fail to understand the problem of our common interests.  We have to abandon the model of politics as civil war and build alliances based on mutual interests if we are going to use the power of our numbers to assure that our children will know the real freedom that comes from the absence of economic coercion. That is the nation Americans were promised and that the rest of the world aspired to emulate. Another world is possible, but it will require forging a united international front against fascism and war.

YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION?

As media attention to Occupy dwindles to a faint echo in the background, many people are asking themselves what happened and whether the dream of revolutionary change it inspired can still be realized. Finding the answer requires us to thoroughly and unflinchingly critique its successes and failures in light of historical precedents provided by previous efforts to effect radical change.

You say you want a Revolution? Well you know, we all want to change the world.

Many of the lessons learned in the 60s in the struggle for the rights of women, Blacks and the Peoples of the United States and other nations were nicely summarized in the Beatles’ classic song Revolution. Ironically, the song was not calling for political revolution but suggested that individual transformation was enough to change the world. Sadly, that has proven not to be the case. Once the immediate crisis of the Vietnam war passed, the urgency of the need for individual and national soul searching seemed to pass with it. We are now paying the price for having not demanding democracy at the time, when so many had seen through the lie and so many had died to expose it.

You say you got a real solution. Well, you know, we'd all love to see the plan.
 
Efforts to unify to fight an oppressive system that is crushing the life out of the middle class, destroying American society and perverting the American dream into a nightmare from which many U.S. citizens have yet to awaken will not succeed without a comprehensive strategy. The most fundamental flaw in the Occupy movement was the stubborn insistence of the leaders of this "leaderless" movement that having a specific agenda would be counter to the spirit of Occupy.


You ask me for a contribution. Well, you know, we're all doing what we can.
 

The Occupy movement has been largely led by youth who for the most part have little or no understanding of the lessons to be learned from revolutionary movements from the 1920s to the 1960s. Many of us who had lived through the last such effort in the 1960s tried to be heard but were ignored by those who each had their own agendas but no plan to realize them. The movement was doomed from the start by the essential split between those who understand that societal change is a process and those who naively expected that somehow they could unify the 99% and transform American society by demanding it, while simultaneously calling for abandonment of the electoral process.

This rigid mindset is as fruitless as that of American society in general, the majority of whose members are so deluded by their own assumptions about what is "politically possible" that they can't see the need for revolutionary change. The problem is not so much the dysfunctional political process itself as it is blind adherence to a failed approach that assumes that only by working within the existing political power structure can the people of the United States acquire the power to change it.

Party loyalists believe that despite an increasingly uphill battle to elect candidates who will put their interests over those of the 1%, somehow they will make progress if they just work harder for the politicians now in office who got there in the current system. They have no higher aspiration than to elect more candidates from their own party in the blind hope that somehow they will do the right thing if they have a large enough majority, despite the fact that both parties have come to put re-election of its members over all other interests. The primary reason that Congress has about a ten percent approval rating is that its members are beholden to their corporate backers and the rich. That guarantees ineffective reform of campaign finance at best, until we can make a candidate's stance on the issue the deciding factor in congressional elections around the country.

The debate about whether Occupy supporters should be reformers or revolutionaries missed the point that both are required to create fundamental change that will stand the test of time. In a society whose dominant response to Occupy ranged from apathy to ridicule to violent reprisal, revolution will first require constitutional reformation of the electoral process, which in itself would require a revolutionary change in political consciousness. This can only happen if voices are encouraged to emerge from the anarchy of Occupy which can compellingly articulate the values that bind Occupiers to the rest of the 99% and the need to unite behind an effective strategy of political reform with the goal of creating a revolutionary change in the US government.

Loyalty to the Democratic and Republican Parties is a major reason for resistance to change. As long as party stalwarts continue to treat politics as a war between conservatives and liberals, they cannot achieve the consensus necessary to force their representatives to respond to the demand to work together to serve the interests of the 99% and not those of corporations and the rich. When the terms conservative and liberal are used in their traditional meanings, it is clear that neither major party can be said to be truly either, since neither tradition has historically held corporate power over government to be a fundamental value. While the Republican Party may have abandoned this principle long ago, Democrats have to do more that pay lip service to checking corporate power to regain the trust liberals used to invest in their party. As long as they assume that winning elections depends on putting corporate interests over those of people, they will not serve those who elected them but those who paid for their campaigns.

In its effort to distance itself from a corrupt political system, Occupy missed a crucial opportunity to marry libertarian support for Occupy with liberal ideals that could have served as the basis of building the mass political movement with the potential to Take Back America for the People. We cannot afford to miss such opportunities to forge links between the self-identified Left and Right if we are serious about wanting revolutionary change.

You say you'll change the constitution. Well, you know, we all want to change your head.

When Adbusters proposed the idea of Occupy they suggested that the movement focus on campaign finance reform through constitutional change and the curbing the power of the banksters. This sensible idea was almost universally ignored by those who responded to the call to Occupy America in favor of an amorphous form of protest billed as direct democracy, where any idea supported by a general assembly was afforded equal weight to any other.

It is obvious that both of the major political Parties have become so dependent on campaign funding by corporations and the rich that the only way to alter or abolish the corporate monopoly on political power is to demand that politicians of all parties and independents support a constitutional amendment that would end the of ability of the wealthy and powerful to buy the loyalty of candidates for Congress. This is the essence of the Pledge to Amend campaign, which aims to make support for such an amendment a litmus test in all congressional elections by 2014. Until Occupy or its successor can find unify around this core issue that is at the root of all the others on its agenda, it will continue to be dismissed as a protest  rather than a call for a peaceful democratic revolution.

The revolutionary movement in the 60s was unified by opposition to a war that personally affected every member of the generation then coming of age. When the US government called for war this time, a small proportion of American youth would bear the burden for all of us. This encouraged Americans suffering the consequences of an economy wracked by corporate excess to put aside concerns about the wars to focus on surviving the resulting economic calamity. In the process, those who were seduced into the idea that by fighting a “war” on terror they were serving the interests of freedom were also largely forgotten.

Had Occupy heeded the lessons of the Vietnam protestors they would have put more emphasis on the fact that all wars in the modern age are fought for corporate Empire, tying the issue of another unpopular war with the economic and social costs of living in a nation whose government is one of, by and for corporations. Had Occupy focused on the connection between corporate power over the US government and war, lack of access to health care, the destruction of the environment and the economic crisis bringing the US to its knees, it would have gained rather than lost momentum in its first year. If individuals and groups working on all these issues come to recognize the purpose in rallying behind the issue of constitutional reform, Occupy can yet realize its potential.

But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out.

Occupy has failed so far because the anarchists and the black block faction demanded that their goals of instant gratification and the use of property destruction be accorded the same or more respect as the ideas of those who they disparaged as reformers rather than revolutionaries. This was the same split that fractured Students for a Democratic Society, which was for a time co-opted by self-styled leaders who demanded that others follow their dictates. A modern parallel is the stubborn insistence of well-established groups and associations of groups such as Move to Amend that only by following the strategy of the few who claim to speak for the movement can we realize our mutual goal of constitutional change.

In suppressing dissident voices in the amendment movement they claim to lead, a small number of self-proclaimed leaders have missed the opportunity to play a part in influencing the Occupy movement. They failed to realize that eventually, those who endorsed their efforts would realize that the “leaders” did not necessarily speak for them because their goal was to build a network of followers who would not question their decisions on strategy and tactics. They not only failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam but did not grasp the opportunity to ride the wave of Occupy in rejecting the simple notion that no individual, group or association should be allowed to co-opt a revolutionary movement.

The answer to the question "can Occupy succeed?" is a resounding yes, but only if those who refuse defeat can stop demanding that others follow their strategy, listen to each other and develop a plan that the movement can rally around. First and foremost, we must refuse to accept that violence against people or property can ever achieve their goals, as the frustrated revolutionaries who gave in to violence in the Vietnam era learned to their everlasting regret. Violence was met by overwhelming violence by the government they sought to overturn. As we have seen, the threat of state violence to crush nonviolent resistance to a system that serves only the interests of those in power is just as real today.

The first American Revolution was born in violence because the colonists had no choice. In this era, the fact that the struggle must take place in occupied territory demands that we avoid violence. In order to assure that those who fought and died for the ideal of freedom did not do so in vain, we must also realize that radical change must begin from within the system if we are to replace it with one in which liberty and justice for all is a reality and not just an empty promise.

Don't you know it's going to be all right....

The American Revolution could not have succeeded in defeating the forces of British fascism in the 1700s if the colonists had not realized that their common enemy was an unholy alliance of corporate and state power. When a critical minority convinced a doubting majority of the necessity of overthrowing the government, Americans recognized that they had to put aside their differences in order to defeat the might of an Empire built on the idea that a privileged elite had the divine right to rule them.

The dream of democracy was born when the Enlightenment for the first time awakened people to the idea that they could create a government of, by and for the People. Because Americans were willing to talk to each other they were able to develop the consensus needed to stage a successful revolution. It was in putting the interests of all over individual interests  that the American character was defined. If we can return to that ideal, we can still realize the dream of democracy and assure that the last, best hope for Mankind does not perish from the Earth.